Sven Co-op Map Reviews

       It seems that making a map in an hour is something of a trend among Sven Co-op mappers. This one is from Robootto, an infamous author known for making strange and unplayable maps. Thankfully this map is, as the map description says, almost playable. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2005 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Robo's 1 Hour Map (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | September 17, 2022 | 2698 characters      If "1 hour map" legitimately means Robootto made this map in one hour, it'd explain a lot. Robo's 1 Hour Map is a walkthrough map that is mostly broken and sloppily thrown together. Textures exist where they shouldn't be, level geometry is jank, combat is a mess, the progression is broken, and there is no real map end. I do not recommend.      It should be noted that this review is primarily of the unlit version of this map. However, I think I've played enough of the version shown here to know that, despite

      It seems that making a map in an hour is something of a trend among Sven Co-op mappers. This one is from Robootto, an infamous author known for making strange and unplayable maps. Thankfully this map is, as the map description says, almost playable. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2005 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Robo's 1 Hour Map (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | September 17, 2022 | 3651 characters      For a map made in one hour, this is pretty terrible. I played this map from the Big Robootto Map Pack, and that version was fullbright, I then downloaded the map off the map's page and reinstalled from that, the map's lighting was fixed. So if you have the big map pack you'll want to use this one instead, not that it matters much, you probably shouldn't play this map.      When the map starts I am already being eaten by headcrabs. This is a good start. There are weapons and ammo strewn about the floor, each door we ope

       The map description describes most of what happens in this map, I don't know what to say. In the screenshots there is a picture of the car moving and the green windshield staying behind, floating in mid-air. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2004 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Robo's Disco (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | August 21, 2022 | 2568 characters      Robo's Disco is a map where a funny little dark ride car runs on rails toward a door which opens when players enter a trigger area in front of it and then Jurassic Park music plays as you see a colorful disco floor and a big screen which says "Roboottos Disco" in a cursive font. The music ends abruptly and the door closes before the little car retreats back to its starting position, phasing through the closed door along the way.      The map is decorated with an almost cathedral-like appearance, though features cartoonish red, blue, and green lights that- while li

      The map description describes most of what happens in this map, I don't know what to say. In the screenshots there is a picture of the car moving and the green windshield staying behind, floating in mid-air. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2004 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Robo's Disco (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | August 21, 2022 | 2626 characters      There is a big car on some rails. I'm pretty sure the car is set to go forward only when somebody jumps off it, although my teammate swears there is a button angled weird around the front of the car. At the end of the rail there is a door, players can walk up and open the door themselves, but this will play the Jurassic Park music mentioned and ruin the whole moment like my teammate did. The song will not play again so I have to restart the map and run my teammate over (push him along harmlessly) to get the whole experience. Doors open, music blares, I glide over the disco fl

      When a rave and a disco combine the result is this map. There is no party, just some twisting paths, weird rooms, and caged boids. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2003 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Rave Disco (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | August 14, 2022 | 2099 characters      Rave-Disco is a robootto map. There's really no point, and there is no end, so if you want to put this on your server then prepare for it to jam a cork in your rotation.      I think the best way to put this is that Rave-Disco is a funhouse map. There's winding corridors, funky rooms full of wacky interactables, trick walls which players can walk right through, buttons which do nothing, crazy colorful lights, and nonsense progression. To Rave-Disco's credit, many stops are pulled with heavy use of boids, some crazy combat segments, and heavy armaments given to actually provide some fun to the map.      Less to Rave-Disco's credit is the atmosphere.

      When a rave and a disco combine the result is this map. There is no party, just some twisting paths, weird rooms, and caged boids. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2003 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Rave Disco (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | August 14, 2022 | 2925 characters      This map is a confusing jumble of hallways and rooms. The map features nonsensical layouts, textures never meant to be walls used as walls, and secrets.      There are two spawn areas, one is situated in what I would call the beginning, and the other I would not. We spawned in the first area mostly, but then my teammate spawned in the second area and was very confused, so be aware of that. Spawn is what I assume to be a disco, with players trapped in glass cages on the dance floor. Blast out of the cage and head up past the weird red pole room and we enter a long hallway. About halfway down the hallway I noticed some light was coming through the wall, so I crowbarr

       I don't really know what secrets I was supposed to find, but this map can sure be a place. Hallways, doors that aren't doors but breakable walls instead, and some other random stuff can all be found here. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2003 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Punk Secret Place (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | July 28, 2022 | 4393 characters     What can I say? Robootto does it again. Act I.      Punk Secret Place is a map about the secret place and the punks who find it. You'd need to be a punk, you see, for only punks take the time it takes to break through the breakable doors which permeate the first act of this 5-act play. Breakable doors, at least 100 of them I'm sure, all lead up to a boss door or sorts. There is a glass security door which takes, gosh, just so much to destroy. It's in a pretty cramped area, and bless robootto he gives an area up near spawn and the ammo respawners where people can fire

      I don't really know what secrets I was supposed to find, but this map can sure be a place. Hallways, doors that aren't doors but breakable walls instead, and some other random stuff can all be found here. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2003 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Punk Secret Place (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | July 28, 2022 | 4554 characters      This map will crash your game. I'm somewhat spoiling the punchline, but I think this is very important to know up front. Falling into the green goo at the end of the map will crash the game with a "Sv_HullPointContent: bad node number". Knowing what I do about the author, Robootto, I think this is entirely intentional. Edit 8/8/2022: Shortly after this review the crash was fixed, the crash was not intentional.      The map starts off strong with a very nice equipment room, but the rest of the map is a hallway. There are a few branches to this hallway but before The

       This map only has one room, or two if you count unreachable rooms, with a giant pyramid and a bunch of weapons and ammo scattered around. The only enemies are zombies that fall out of the sky forever. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Red Pyramide (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | July 21, 2022 | 2455 characters      Robootto does it again. red-pyramide is a baffling experiential digital space. Players may arm themselves as they find themselves encased with a red pyramid(e?) within a large silo of some sort, shallow liquid permeating the featureless base of it. A suspended walkway surrounds the very tip of the pyramid(e?) and extend bridges to meet in a circle around said tip. Up above, a shaft to the outside world directly above the pyramid(e?)'s tip drops freshly spawned zombies down into the tip. Players can use weapons from the surrounding area to combat these zombies if they wish. Maybe this works

      This map only has one room, or two if you count unreachable rooms, with a giant pyramid and a bunch of weapons and ammo scattered around. The only enemies are zombies that fall out of the sky forever. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Red Pyramide (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | July 21, 2022 | 2335 characters      There is a red pyramid. Like many of the author's (the author is Robootto) other maps this one is avant garde, strange, and somewhat poorly put together. It has an area that players can't reach, clashing textures not meant to be on walls, and true to the map description there is an unsettling sound playing in the background at all times.      The map layout itself is a large room dominated by a red pyramid in the middle. Players spawn on top of a walkway that goes around the perimeter of the room and has a bridge in the middle to a platform on top of the red pyramid. Zombies fall down fro

       Jump up a lot of precarious platforms to get to the top. There is no end to this map and sometimes players will spawn at the top, negating the need to platform at all. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Trash Xprase Arena (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | July 10, 2022 | 1251 characters      Trash Xprase Arena is a climbing map. Players climb crude brushwork of multiple colors through a concrete silo all the way to the top, wherein they exit into a Toonrun grassy noll. Sometimes you spawn at the bottom, sometimes you spawn at the top. I gave up at a certain point, so I can't say for sure that all of the jumps are completable- a couple of them, especially after the elevator, felt that way. Oh yeah, there's also a janky elevator.      Usually my reviews are longer than this, but this just about covers it. Most of the jumps are perilous and will send the player to hell in a handbasket. There's no sp

      Jump up a lot of precarious platforms to get to the top. There is no end to this map and sometimes players will spawn at the top, negating the need to platform at all. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Trash Xprase Arena (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | July 10, 2022 | 1554 characters      I never know how to review platforming maps because I am not a fan of platforming in general. My teammate however is well versed in the arts of first person jumping onto things. He has assured me the climb is probably doable but very difficult. This is already a huge step up for the author, Robootto, whose maps are usually all nonsense.      The map looks real bad, it has misaligned textures that are not meant to be tiled on the walls, all thrown together haphazardly. The platforms come in all shapes and sizes and later there are rails. Half way up the climb there is an elevator designed to be bullshit and it succeeds at t

       Welcome to the surreal pool. This map has some trippy dimensions and overall weird construction, giving the map a surreal and liminal feel to it.  SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2001 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Poolarea (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | May 30, 2022 | 3725 characters      Poolarea is a very interesting map by notorious mapper robootto. The map features a large pool area liberally seasoned with aliens, grunts, assassins, and a gargantua. The fun doesn't stop there, as secrets unveil more battles in side areas and more weapons to take the map with.      I guess Poolarea is meant as a hangout map where the secrets and objectives of taking out the enemies are tertiary to the main RP-style hangout spot Gldsrc tourism aspect. I get that. As a matter of fact, I'd say it's one of robootto's more successful accomplishments in that realm. The diving boards are all there, all reachable, and I think it's a nice

      Welcome to the surreal pool. This map has some trippy dimensions and overall weird construction, giving the map a surreal and liminal feel to it.  SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2001 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Poolarea (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | May 30, 2022 | 5513 characters      At this point in my map reviewing career I've played a lot of maps. I'm still not even 15% of the way done yet. But I have played a LOT of maps by this mapper, Robootto. I've come to expect a certain caliber of map from him. Maybe its the fact that I've just played two maps in a row that weren't actively malicious to the player, but this map is different than what he usually creates.      The map starts off in a strange room with a weird line in the wall, some weird tile blocks on either side of a steep staircase, and a bunch of ammo for weapons we don't have. There is a door here that is breakable and part of the wall with the we

       Pink is a brightly colored and garish map with a short platforming section and then a boss fight around a big cup of water. It's very short and has no ending, there is an inaccessible hallway in the last room that does nothing. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2004 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Pink (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | May 30, 2022 | 3159 characters      Pink is a map by robootto which uses xeno.wad to make an experience comparable to being gummed by a toothless giant with halitosis.      The players begin in a platforming segment over nonlethal pizzalava. The pizzalava is not lethal, thankfully, but it is shameful to fall in. Almost the entire platforming segment can be bypassed by just falling into the pizzalava and walking to the penultimate platform, jumping onto that, and then jumping onto the platform which leads to the exit.      What follows is the hallway of breakable transparent brushes and headcrabs. From there

      Pink is a brightly colored and garish map with a short platforming section and then a boss fight around a big cup of water. It's very short and has no ending, there is an inaccessible hallway in the last room that does nothing. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2004 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Pink (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | May 30, 2022 | 2257 characters      Pink is a gross looking map that uses a lot of the uncommonly used alien textures. The map looks pretty gross. It starts off with a pretty bad platforming section, there are grenades here you definitely want and some shotgun shells on other platforms, the water here doesn't hurt at all so swimming is harmless. Thankfully the whole section is skippable, I swam to the end of the sequence, climbed onto the last platform and jumped to the end.      After the platforming players go through a hallway, over a shotgun, past three zombies, down a short slip-n-slide, down a long d

       The map with the unpronounceable name is about a rocket ship. It kind of goes up but not all the way and it is very slow. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2004 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Tuukkekovajatka (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | May 30, 2022 | 1389 characters      Tuukkekovajatka is a robootto map and boy howdy is it a robootto map.      Alright, here's the gist of it: you start on a raft(?) floating in nonlethal lava(?) which you swim in to a ladder(?) which you climb up into a room(?) which houses a rocket(?) which you can fly up to another blue room(?) or if you prefer jump off early to get to the pink platform. As the map description says, the rocket unfortunately does not fly high enough to get into the flower room.      This entire map is very blocky, the lava room where the player starts makes no sense, the rocket is pretty ugly looking but hats off to robootto for making an evocative enough concave elevator rocket bru

      The map with the unpronounceable name is about a rocket ship. It kind of goes up but not all the way and it is very slow. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2004 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Tuukkekovajatka (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | May 30, 2022 | 1980 characters      I didn't know what to expect from the map with the unpronounceable name. What I got was a weird spawn point in some water that looks like hot lava but is totally safe and harmless. There is a glass partition in the middle of the room and a platform on the other side, swimming under the water can take you to the platform but you can not jump on top of it, the whole area is useless. Instead climb up the ladder.      Up the ladder is a flat white room with a very basic looking rocket. There is a room in the bottom of the rocket but there are no controls. Up a misaligned and non transparent ladder players can access a room in the top of the rocket, the button to go up is

           Piha is a façade of what appears to be an apartment building, the map description claims this to be the author, Robootto's, house. There isn't much interactivity or stuff to do in this map. SCMapDP page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2004 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Piha (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | May 28, 2022 | 2627 characters      Piha is a map by Robootto, crafter of extreme woes and enigmas, but contains neither woe nor enigmas— a fact which left me uneasy through my experience. Instead, Piha is a fairly passable façade of a home, facing some bushes, and with a brutalist blocky backend with ladders to climb all over it. There's not a lot of interactivity to comment on, so instead I'll judge it by its presentation.      Piha reminds me in some ways of the castle in Mario 64, by displaying a magnificent façade in front which develops atmosphere, but leaving everything around it simple or plain. I think of this kind of de

           Piha is a façade of what appears to be an apartment building, the map description claims this to be the author, Robootto's, house. There isn't much interactivity or stuff to do in this map. SCMapDP page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2004 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Piha (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | May 26, 2022 | 1554 characters      This map is mostly a façade of an apartment building. It's got a nice open lot, presumably for parking, in front of about 8 units, four on the first floor and four on the second floor. Ther eis only one part you can really enter, the cluster of units on the left has a staircase up to the two units upstairs, only the one on the right exists and is a simple affair consisting of a room with an American flag and a balcony.      There are some ladders providing access to the roof from the back of the apartment building, but I can see no way to get over there without cheating. I noclipped through the whol